Thursday, February 18, 2016

The festival often features the short films of some of Powell River’s own film makers. Give’r in the River was a compilation of three short films. Follow the link and you can see the fun!

All the Time in the World

This was an excellent documentary about a family who leaves the “real” world behind to live in the Yukon bush for nine months. They have no road access, electricity, or running water, and no clocks or watches. The story is told mainly through the words of the children, aged 10, 8 and 4.

This is my favourite film so far – but there are days to go and many more movies to see!

Tender

The documentary is about a community in Australia who are attempting to take after-death care away from funeral homes and bring it back into the home. During the course of the filming, one of the members of the community centre was diagnosed with terminal cancer and suddenly everything became much more personal. I thought this would be a hard movie to watch; I certainly had lots of tears, but it wasn’t as difficult as I expected.

There was an interesting panel discussion following the movie to discuss end-of-life challenges and options in our community. In Powell River we are already well prepared; we have trained Hospice volunteers, aware caregivers and doctors, a death midwife in training, and a section of the cemetery that is designated for green burials.